Page 9 of Healed

I blinked at her slowly, waiting for the room to stop spinning long enough for her face to settle into something recognisable. “Looks like half the men got to you, too.”

There were faint bruises along her jaw, joining the fresh ones marring the rest of her face. Her lips were dry and split, her cheeks sunken, and her hair hung limp and greasy around her cheeks.

I could see the bones in her chest, along her shoulders and down her arms. She looked as though a strong wind would snap her in two. Her collarbone had a bump in it—telling me it had snapped and not been set properly. And that was just what I could see. Who knew what she was hiding beneath her clothes?

What the fuck had been happening here?

She looked as though she was someone who had spent years being punished simply for living—if this type of existence could even be called living.

“Stop looking at me like that, Luke. I’m fine.”

“I think we both know that’s not true, Mrs Rider.”

Her eyes snapped to mine with a flash of irritation so sharp and familiar it almost made me smile. “Michelle,” she corrected, and there was no softness in it, no gentle reminder, just a tired woman who had clearly had enough. “Harley has been gone a long time, Luke. And his surname was never fucking Rider.”

“Never said it was,” I grinned back, and then tried to sit up.

“Steady!” she fussed, trying—and failing—to push me back down.

“I’m fine. Just like you’re fine. But I’m solving nothing lying on this floor and feeling sorry for myself.”

“I don’t care. Lie down!” she snapped, shoving me with all of her strength.

I looked down at her hands, having not moved my body a mere inch, and shook my head at her. “That was utterly pathetic. And dramatic. And also a little bit sad.”

She sat back on her heels, trying to hide a wince, and eyed me with disdain. “You always were a brute. Lay off the steroids.”

“Oh, wow. Here we go again,” I rolled my eyes. “After everything—”

“Spare me an infamous Vienna rant. Not the time. Not the place.”

“Fair point, excellently made,” I nodded back. She gave me a small grin, and I took that as my opportunity to sit up straighter, resting my head on one of my knees for a moment as I adjusted to the spinning and pushed past the pain.

I’d seen Michelle a few times over the years Gabriella and I were together—and even afterwards. As the old lady of the ex-president, our paths had crossed frequently. Especially in my old role as peacemaker. But she had never looked like this. Even after Harley had died and she had spat at me in the street, she’d still had fire and strength—it was where Gabby got it from.

Now she just looked… broken.

It was the way she held herself. The way she moved as though every part of her had been broken at some point and had healed wrong. The way she kept one arm tucked close to her ribs. The way her fingers shook when she smoothed them over her skirt, trying to make herself look presentable in a basement that smelled of damp, blood, and old fear.

Michelle always had the sort of expression that made men think twice before opening their mouths. It was why she had been Kitty’s biggest rival.

This woman still had pieces of her, but only pieces. The rest had been chipped away by whatever Nico and the club had done to her.

And beneath it all, a realisation was slowly dawning on me.

Had this been the real reason Gabriella had stayed? Is this what she had lived with?

Had this been what she’d experienced?

Rage simmered beneath my skin, blocking out some of the pain.

I didn’t want to ask. Out of respect for Michelle, I didn’t want to pry. But I needed to know. I needed to know exactly the kind of man I was dealing with.

“What did he do to you?” I asked, though the second the words left my mouth, I regretted them.

Because the sheer amount of hurt and pain reflected on her face almost gutted me. But finally she sighed, as though she knew this was the end of the road and she couldn’t hide it anymore.

“Truthfully, Luke, what hasn’t he done?” she replied quietly. “Nico likes an audience, and when he doesn’t have one, he makes one. Sometimes that was me. Sometimes it was Gabriella. Sometimes it was innocent girls he’d picked up, promising them a better life. Gabriella did her best to protect them, but…”